ATLANTA — One week after a jury found George Zimmerman not guilty in the death of unarmed teen
Trayvon Martin, people gathered for nationwide rallies to press for changes to self-defense laws
and for federal civil-rights charges against the former neighborhood-watch leader.

The Florida case has become a flashpoint in separate but converging national debates over
self-defense, guns and race relations.

Zimmerman, who said that he was protecting himself when he shot Martin, identifies himself as
Latino. Martin was black.

“It’s personal,” said Cincinnati resident Chris Donegan, whose 11-year-old son wore a black
hoodie to the rally, as Martin did when he died. “Anybody who is black with kids, Trayvon Martin
became our son.”

The Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network organized the “Justice for Trayvon” rallies and
vigils outside federal buildings in at least 101 cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Wichita,
Kan., and Atlanta.

Chants rang out across the rallies: “Justice! Justice! Justice! … Now! Now! Now!” “We won’t
forget” and “No justice! No peace!” Many also sang hymns, prayed and held hands.

In Columbus, dozens of protesters marched around the Ohio Statehouse yesterday.

Demonstrator James Jones, one of several people who spoke in Columbus, said he was tired of
being told the Martin case was not “my business.”

“He’s everybody’s business!” he shouted to the crowd of about 200.

He and other speakers issued a wider call to end gun violence that claims too many young
lives.

“Trayvon Martin is just one of many tragedies,” Jones said. “The shootings have got to
stop."

In New York, hundreds of people — including music superstars Jay Z and Beyonce, as well as
Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton — gathered in the heat.

Fulton told the crowd she was determined to fight for societal and legal changes needed to
ensure that black youths no longer are viewed with suspicion because of their skin color.

“I promise you I’m going to work for your children as well,” she said to the rally crowd.

At a morning appearance at Sharpton’s headquarters in Harlem, she implored people to understand
that the tragedy involved more than Martin alone. “Today, it was my son. Tomorrow, it might be
yours,” she said.

In addition to pushing the Justice Department to investigate civil-rights charges against
Zimmerman, Sharpton told supporters he wants to see a rollback of stand-your-ground self-defense
laws.

“We are trying to change laws so that this never, ever happens again,” Sharpton said.

Stand-your-ground laws are on the books in more than

20 states, and they go beyond many older, traditional self-defense statutes. In general, the
laws eliminate a person’s duty to retreat in the face of a serious physical threat.

Zimmerman relied on a self-defense argument and didn’t invoke stand-your-ground, though the
judge included a provision about it in instructions allowing jurors to consider it as a legitimate
defense. And race wasn’t discussed in front of the jury. But the two topics have dominated public
discourse about the case and came up throughout yesterday’s rallies.

In Indianapolis, the Rev. Jeffrey Johnson told about 200 attendees that the nationwide effort is
about making life safer for young black men, who he said are endangered by racial profiling. He
compared Zimmerman’s acquittal with that of four white officers in the beating of black motorist
Rodney King in 1992.

“The verdict freed George Zimmerman, but it condemned America more,” said Johnson, pastor of the
Eastern Star Church in Indianapolis and a member of the board of directors of the National Action
Network.

In Miami, Tracy Martin spoke about his son.

“This could be any one of our children,” he said. “Our mission now is to make sure that this
doesn’t happen to your child.”

He recalled how he vowed to Trayvon as he lay in his casket that he would seek justice.

“I will continue to fight for Trayvon until the day I die,” he said.

Shantescia Hill held a sign in Miami that read: “Every person deserves a safe walk home.” The
31-year-old mother, who is black, said, “I’m here because our children can’t even walk on the
streets without fearing for their lives.”

In New Orleans, La’Monte Johnson, a California native, said he’s been stopped multiple times by
police and handcuffed “because I fit the description of someone they were looking for,” though he
noted charges were never filed against him.

“You can be the greatest black guy around, but you can’t get away from it,” he said. “You’re not
equal.”